Much attention is being paid to how the world reacts to American aggression against Venezuela. Commentators count statements, resolutions, and diplomatic positions. Yet this focus misses the central question. The real test is not how governments react, but how the American public and the wider Western public respond when their own governments openly violate international law.

That question goes to the heart of the so-called “rules-based international order”.

Venezuela is not an abstract crisis. It is a country located on the northern edge of South America, along the Caribbean Sea, and endowed with the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Geography and resources alone ensured that Venezuela would never be treated as an equal sovereign state. From the early twentieth century onwards, US policy towards Venezuela was driven by strategic and economic interests, not democratic principles.

For decades, relations remained smooth so long as Venezuelan governments aligned themselves with US corporate and geopolitical priorities. The rupture came not because Venezuela discovered authoritarianism, but because it discovered independence. With Hugo Chávez, the nationalisation of resources and efforts to build regional alternatives to US dominance, Venezuela committed the unforgivable sin of defiance.

From that moment, the language changed. Oil and power were replaced with “human rights”, “democracy”, and “restoring legitimacy”. Yet the methods of sanctions, economic strangulation, diplomatic isolation, recognition of parallel governments, and threats of force revealed the continuity of purpose. None of these actions was authorised by the United Nations. All of them violated the core principles of the UN Charter.

Economic sanctions deliberately designed to cripple a population are not........

© The Friday Times